Three years ago, Honda released the new pure electric vehicle brand "e:N" with great fanfare, but unlike the grand plan formulated at the beginning, consumers did not see Honda achieve a gorgeous transformation three years later, but saw Honda's struggle in the new energy market.
According to relevant data, the sales of the two models of the e:N series since their launch are quite bleak, Dongfeng Honda e:NS1 cumulative sales in January and February this year are 1,261 units, and Guangqi Honda e:NP1 is 56 units, and the combined results of these two models are less than a fraction of the monthly sales of the current hot-selling new energy models.
However, on April 16, Honda, which is "a little unconvinced", brought a new new energy brand "Ye". Honda China General Manager Masayuki Igarashi also said at the press conference: Honda will continue to adhere to the strategic goal of promoting full electrification in 2035, and the Ye brand will launch three new products within two years.
Among them, Ye S7 and Ye P7 are the first models of the Ye brand, and they are scheduled to be launched at the end of 2024. The Ye GT CONCEPT is the second model of the Ye brand, which is scheduled to be launched in 2025. As a brand-new brand, the speed of product launch and planning of Ye brand is not slow. However, the current product performance of the new car still makes the industry not see many bright spots.
It is reported that the "Ye" brand model adopts the newly developed intelligent and efficient pure electric "W" architecture (Architecture W), but this platform architecture is not the only technology of the brand, and it is reported that the third product of the e:N series to be released at the Beijing Auto Show will also use this "W" architecture. The two brands use the same platform architecture, and for consumers, it is easy to think of how this new "Ye" brand is different from the previous e:N brand. Could it be that adopting a new name will allow Honda to realize the transformation of the new energy market?
In addition, in addition to adopting the "W" architecture, the two new cars of the "Ye" brand also integrate the Honda SENSING 360+ and Honda CONNECT 4.0 into the intelligent digital cockpit. At the same time, the new car is available in different versions of two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive, with a choice of V-exclusive mode and R super driving mode. It is worth noting that the "Ye" brand will also adopt a new "H" logo, which seems to be the biggest difference from Honda's previous new energy products.
The industry speculates that Honda's behavior of "old wine in new bottles" seems to be the result of a game between China and Japan on the development strategy of new energy. This time, on the new "Ye" brand, the Chinese team has obtained greater authority. For example, in terms of exterior design, the new car is dominated by the Chinese R&D team, and the average age of the R&D team is only 32 years old.
At the same time, more products from Chinese parts companies have been added to the new car, such as CATL's battery, Huawei's intelligent cockpit, and iFLYTEK's voice interaction. Although these measures have made a certain breakthrough for Honda, it is obvious that there are not many advantages in the competition of products in the same class.
At the same time, in the current situation of continuous price war in the new energy market, the "Ye" brand wants to show stronger competitiveness, and it also needs to come up with more surprises in terms of price, which is also inseparable from the support of more localized industrial chains.
In addition, after the release of the "Ye" brand, many consumers have a lot of complaints about this new name. Some netizens bluntly said: There is fire and chemistry in the name, which obviously does not take into account the minds of Chinese consumers, and it is still a new energy brand. In fact, this kind of "metaphysical" thing has a great impact on Chinese consumers, and the ideal MEGA has not been accepted by more consumers after its launch, which is somewhat affected by this factor. As a brand new brand led by a Chinese team, it is clear that this mistake should not be made again.
Write at the end
Now Honda has an e:N series in Dongben and Guangben respectively put into production, in addition, Dongfeng Honda has also developed a separate Lingxi brand to focus on new energy, this time Honda China once again launched the "Ye" brand is indeed a bit surprising. It can be seen that Honda does want to make some changes in order to reverse the decline of new energy products, but this is not just a problem that can be solved by releasing a new brand. How the "Ye" brand models can be differentiated from other Honda new energy models, and how to reflect better competitiveness with competing products in the same class will determine whether the brand can go further in the future.
(This article is originally produced by Wenwu Lane New Media Studio, please indicate the source: Wenwu Lane, the author of this article: Xia Mu, personal opinion, for reference only)